CIVILIZATION

Culture is as necessary for humanity as food. Once s state eliminates its access to the arts, it sets up the machinery for the decay of civilization. I would rather sacrifice well-paved roads than good theater. ~ James Earl Jones

ASSERTION

The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance, whether created by others or by one's own human failings. They constantly remind us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we can actually go. ~ Ralph Ellison

READAPTS

Any great work of art ... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange special air. ~ Leonard Bernstein

SUBTLETY

Although human subtlety makes a variety of inventions by different means to the same end, it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci